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<H2 ALIGN="CENTER">Red China Blues</H2>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1"><B>By Jan Wong, published by
Doubleday/Anchor</B></FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1"> &copy; Reviewed by
<A HREF="mailto:rwwaugh@istar.ca">Rick Waugh</A></FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">This book is a must for anyone trying to
understand recent Chinese culture, government, and attitudes. It also happens
to be an excellent read, both witty and to the point.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">In 1976 Jan Wong was a young Chinese-Canadian
student, fresh out of high school. 19 years old, she was going through the
turmoil of her age, and was deeply affected by the shootings at Kent State
University. She decided that Western society was corrupt, that in particular it
treated women terribly, and that Communism, and Maoism in particular, was the
answer.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">She applied to go and study for three months in
China. She was accepted, one of the first foreign students from the west to be
allowed to do so. She extended her stay for a year, then applied to study at
Beijing University, where she spent four years. After graduation, and a few
years back in the US and Canada, she returned to China as a correspondent for
the Globe and Mail. She stayed in that post until several years after Tiananmen
Square.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">The book covers her life during those times. In
the beginning she was a radical Maoist, believing everything she was told.
Looking back, she now cringes at the things she swallowed as truth. No one,
even her relatives in China, was brave enough to tell her what was really
happening.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">Her writing treats all this with gentle irony;
she was a bright eyed young enthusiast willing to believe that the
worker&#146;s paradise actually existed, and the reader can feel and see both
what she felt at the time, and how she feels now. Alongside this, the
descriptions of what was going on in the country are excellent. She might not
have realized until later what she was witnessing, but she forgot
nothing.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">During her years at Beijing University, the
Cultural Revolution was in full swing. The students were regularly sent out to
the farms on work parties. Jan had to fight to be included. She thought it was
wonderful. She went through the sessions where &#145;enemies of the
people&#146; were denounced and &#145;criticized&#146;, and couldn&#146;t
understand everyone else&#146;s lack of enthusiasm.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">All throughout the book she touches on what was
happening in government at the time. She relates how Mao was playing off Deng
Xiaoping against the Gang of Four. Mao&#146;s wife, Jiang Qing, leader of the
gang, believed in Mao&#146;s endless class struggle, and that the university
students should not be allowed to become a new intelligentsia. She constantly
interrupted their studies with work parties. As a result, by the time Jan
graduated from the university, most of her time there was wasted. None of the
students had really earned a degree. Mao died, the Gang of Four was arrested,
and Jan was forced to see that so much of what she had been going through was
lies and propaganda.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">She went back to North America, studied
journalism, then came back to Beijing as a correspondent for the Globe and
Mail. She covers a lot of territory in this section of the book; the abuses of
the Communist party, the continued trade in women for wives, the poor people
who have been left out of the economic revolution, the constant application of
capital punishment, and the harvesting of executed prisoner&#146;s internal
organs. She sat on a balcony above Tiananmen square and watched the soldiers
shooting the students, then investigated the governments treatment of the
survivors and their families.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">Finally she covers where she sees China going,
where the new economy is taking them. She believes the new middle class that is
emerging may finally bring China into democracy and prosperity. She also sees
the spoiled single children causing a revolution of their own; for the first
time, a generation of Chinese are growing up who are more interested in
themselves than their duty to the family.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-1">Buy or borrow this book, and read it. It will
open your eyes as thoroughly as the experiences it details opened those of the
writer.</FONT></P>
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<FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE="-2"><B>Last Updated: July 16th, 1999 </B></FONT>
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